She was company. A break from tedium.
She slid a photo of Flora across the table to him. 'Ever seen her?' she asked.
'Once or twice. At Black Tupelo.'
'Talk to her?'
'No.' He passed the photo back. 'I only noticed her, that's all.'
She pulled out another photo, this one of Enrique. 'How about him?'
Bingo. His reaction gave him away.
LaRue stared at the photo while obviously trying to formulate an answer, trying to figure out if he should tell the truth or lie. 'I sold him TTX,' he finally said with resignation, his shoulders drooping as he passed the photo back.
'Earlier, you said you never sold TTX.'
He didn't answer.
'Which is it? Did you or didn't you sell TTX?'
'I did.'
Elise leaned forward, elbows on the table. 'Tell me about it.'
'He would come in a big black car. A Lincoln, maybe. Somebody was in the backseat.'
'Strata Luna?'
'Probably, but I couldn't see. The windows were dark.'
'Why didn't you tell me this before?'
'I didn't want to get into any more trouble. But I'm no murderer. You know that, don't you?'
At least not a deliberate one, she thought. But he'd still poisoned her.
Elise got to her feet. 'I'll see what I can do to get you out of here.' She'd already decided to drop the charges, but she wasn't ready to tell him just yet.
He was a scientist. A screwed-up genius. Prison would be a terrible waste.
Heading for the parking lot, Elise mulled over the new information. If what LaRue said was true, then Enrique had been somehow involved in the TTX case, at least peripherally. A big black car with tinted windows. Pretty straightforward. Both Enrique's and Flora's throats had been cut. By Strata Luna? Because they'd known something?
Elise had grudgingly liked Strata Luna. She hadn't wanted to believe she was involved. Had she allowed Strata Luna's connection to Jackson Sweet to cloud her judgment?
As Elise approached the car, her cell phone rang.
It was Seth West, Truman Harrison's coworker.
'You know how you said to call you if I thought of anything else?' he asked. 'Well, I was on vacation in Disney World and we were on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and I remembered that Truman went into the tunnels under Savannah the day he died.'
Elise perked up.
'We'd had a report of a possible sewer line break. Near the intersection of President and Bay. He had to go in through a grate in one of the old sealed cotton storerooms to check it out and write up a repair order if we needed it. I said no way was I going down there. I knew it would be nasty as hell, but Truman didn't seem to mind.
'He was gone a long time, and when he came back he said the place was full of cockroaches. They were crawling on him. In his hair. In his shirt.'
'Did he tell you anything else?'
'Said it looked like homeless people had been living down there. Sleeping on filthy mattresses. Can you imagine?'
'Sounds horrid,' she agreed.
'Does that help you at all? I kept thinking it was silly to bother you, but my wife said I should let you know.'
'You were right to call.'
After disconnecting, Elise immediately put in a call to Eddie, her favorite contact in the research department. He could find out anything, no matter how obscure.
'Remember that guy who was always in trouble for going into the Savannah tunnels?' Elise asked, heading for shade and a picnic table near her car. 'What was his name?'
'Pascal. Adam Pascal,' Eddie said. 'For a while there, he was always in the paper and on the news.'
She sat down at the wooden table and pulled out pen and paper. 'Any idea where he is, or if he's still around?'
'Let me check.' Elise heard the clicking of keys; then Eddie was back. 'Lives on Isle of Hope. Was arrested about three weeks ago for his latest caper. Severely fractured a leg and is home recuperating.'
Elise jotted down the number, thanked Eddie, and gave Pascal a call.
Like all obsessed people, the guy liked to talk about his obsession.
'Those tunnels go everywhere, man. Under houses. Businesses. Warehouses. Cemeteries. Hospitals. You should see the one under the old Candler Hospital. Creepy as hell, with gurneys and old wooden wheelchairs. The tunnels were used for all sorts of things, but mainly to transport bodies from the hospital to the morgue and cemetery.'
'But aren't they sealed?'
'Long time ago. And not very well. You know how the city has always been about that kind of thing. Outta sight, outta mind. Been a lot of water through there over the years. They're crumbling. Dangerous as all get-out. People have died down there. / almost died down there. I'd offer to take you, but I'm laid up with a broken leg. A tunnel caved in on me, and it was three days before I dug my way out.'
'You're lucky to be alive, Mr. Pascal.'
'That's what I keep saying.'
'What can you tell me about the tunnels and the Hartzell, Tate, and Hartzell Funeral Home?'
'Used to be a tunnel from the funeral home to a nearby morgue. It's not the morgue anymore. Now it's a residence.'
'Description and location?' Elise asked, pen ready.
Before she'd finished taking it down, she knew the building he was talking about: Strata Luna's house.
'Black Tupelo?' she asked.
'Goes there too.'
An alternate universe right under their feet.
'How about the Secret Garden Bed and Breakfast?'
'Yep. But don't you go down there in those tunnels, you hear me? I'm not exaggerating the danger.'
'I won't.'
'I'll fax you some maps. How's that sound?'
'Great.' She gave him her fax number, then disconnected.
While Elise talked to Pascal, the manager of CD Underbelly had left a voice mail.
'You know that stuff you asked me to find?' the message said. 'Well, I found it. The CDs were put on plastic. Charged to some dude named Enrique Xavier. The boss is cheap as hell and we still use the old imprint machines, so I was looking at the credit card imprint and noticed it was one of those business credit cards, and that it didn't belong to Xavier at all. Guess what other name was on it? Guess who owned the card?' He paused for effect. 'That nutcase that rides through town dressed in black and wearing a veil over her face. Strata Luna.'
Click.
Elise pushed number nine on her mobile phone, saving the message. Then she looked at her watch and realized it was almost time to pick up Audrey from softball practice.
Audrey heard tires squealing and looked up to see a familiar yellow car flying around the corner, her mother at the wheel.
Now what?
Elise jerked to a stop, leaned across the seat, and shoved open the door. 'I hope you haven't been waiting long.'
Audrey recognized her mother's hurry-up mode. She tossed her backpack and softball glove in the backseat, and jumped in the car. 'Just a couple minutes.'
